Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, June 1899: Volume LVVarious
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, June 1899: Volume LV
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
The interesting points of view which the study of racial geography
presents are numberless. This is particularly shown in Professor
Ripley's chapter on Modern Social Problems. In this chapter the writer
acknowledges, as he does elsewhere, that theories of race and of
heredity have sometimes been pushed too far. He demands a due
recognition of the influence of environment, and cites cases where
environment will explain divergences from what are recognized as race
characteristics or tendencies. An example of this is afforded by the
case of Brittany, in connection with separateness of home life. The
population of Brittany belongs to a race that is particularly prone to
such separateness, and yet in Brittany there is an unusual
intermingling of families under one roof. We can not enter into the
explanation here, but Professor Ripley shows how the physical
geography of the country may account for the variation from type. In
the same chapter the writer shows very interestingly how the Celtic
parts of France manifest almost invariably conservative tendencies:
how they shun divorce, afford a very low rate of suicide, and, in the
matter of crime, tend rather to deeds of violence than to acts of
dishonesty. The general impression which the intelligent reader will
gather from the whole work is that "racial geography" has all the
interest of a rapidly growing science; but that, while much has been
accomplished, much more remains to be done. The lines of research are
many, and we may reasonably hope that before long the combined labors
of anthropologist, ethnologist, and sociologist will give us a
coherent body of knowledge and theory which shall not only illuminate
the past but be of the very highest value for the comprehension of the
problems of our own day.
Scientific Literature.
SPECIAL BOOKS.
In a study of what constitutes the foundations of zoölogy we know of
no one better equipped to discuss the various problems than Professor
Brooks.[V] As an original investigator in many groups of invertebrate
zoölogy, as a student of animal life in temperate and tropical seas,
as a special teacher of embryology and zoölogy for a quarter of a
century, and, above all, as a profound student of the philosophical
literature of the subject, his equipment is thorough and complete. A
fair review of this work would be difficult without voluminous
quotations from its pages.
[Footnote V: The Foundations of Zoölogy. A Course of Lectures
delivered at Columbia University on the Principles of Science as
illustrated by Zoölogy. By William Keith Brooks, Ph. D., LL. D.,
Professor of Zoölogy at Johns Hopkins University. Pp. 339. The
Macmillan Company.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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